PS4: A Gamer’s Guide to the New PlayStation 4

A man plays on a Playstation 4 at Madrid Games Week in IFEMA on November 9, 2013 in Madrid, Spain.

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I thought my days of getting excited by the arrival of a new video-game console were pretty much behind me. So, I was pleasantly surprised to get a thrill out of unboxing and baptizing a new PlayStation 4.

The $399 PS4, which hits a store near you Friday, hit my living room a day earlier. It’s the first console refresh for Sony since 2006, and the sleek and zippy device generally did not disappoint.

I know many fellow reviewers have already praised the PS4’s design and Sony’s complete overhaul of the box’s user interface. I thought those two were the weakest features of the PS4.

Yes, the console is thin and sexy-looking, with beveled edges and gleaming Knight Rider-style colored lights. But if you’re bordering on old coot, as I am, Sony went overboard on the sleekness of its industrial design.

The on/off and eject buttons on the front of the console are too durned small. I actually missed them on first perusal of the PS4.

When I did locate them, my fat fingers had trouble hitting the on/off switch, which is wedged into the cranny that separates the shiny half of the console from the matte side. It was very hard to reach, though the device turned on right away when I grazed the button with my fingernail and a soft blue light signaled the box was on. The light turned to white when I inserted my first game disk.

Turning off the PS4, though, was a pain. A quick touch did nothing. Holding the button in with my fingernail made the light blink for a second, then nothing. Then, a few second later, the white light turned to orange, then the PS4 shut off. But I failed to shut it off on several subsequent attempts, and I’m still not sure how long I have to hold the button to shut the thing off.

The only other notable features on the front of the PS4 are two USB ports — blazing fast USB 3.0 ports, to be exact. Those can be used for peripherals and for the recharging cables of the PS4’s wireless DualShock controllers.

The back of the console is also quite zen-like with only an optical audio output port, an HDMI port, an Ethernet port and an auxiliary through which you can hook up the the PS4 camera. That peripheral will, by the way, set you back around $60, removing some of the console’s price edge versus the Xbox One, which comes with a Kinect sensor. An extra DualShock controller also costs about $60, if more than one wants to play.

The PS4 came with an HDMI cable, a power cord and a micro-USB charging cable, as well as a fairly crummy mono-earbud that I intend to replace with a proper wireless headset.

I was impressed at how quiet the PS4 was. Chip technology has come a long way since 2006, so there’s no whirring helicopter keeping the device from overheating, forcing you to jack up the TV’s sound and ruining your hearing.

When I first turned the PS4 on, I had to go through a Day One firmware update, which took about 10 minutes via a wireless network. The console shut off and restarted without a problem.

The UI, while revamped by Sony and much better than the PS3’s confusing hodgepodge of menu hieroglyphics, is still not very intuitive. Gone are the series of pulldown menus accessed via the controller, replaced by several rows of icons and tiles. The presentation of non-game content — such as Hulu, Netflix and other tiles — pops out and is easy to navigate. But I still find the little tool boxes and other hoodingies Sony uses not at all user-friendly, and I wonder why such a plugged-in, quirky company still can’t get the menus right.

I want something as easy to move around in as an Amazon Video or Netflix window. It’s not that hard to do, but that will have to wait for updates, upgrades or the next console.

There are some very cool things in those menus, though, once you find them. First, it’s a snap to capture and share photos and clips of gameplay and share to Facebook, once you’ve used your social platform details to log in. You can annoy friends or friends of friends as much as you want (I chose not to), by sharing game activity as often as you achieve something, like winning a trophy. This brings social to a whole new level for Sony, and to me, removes one of my big complaints about the PS3.

I was a big PS2 player, but largely ditched Sony’s last-generation PS3, save for game reviews, because there wasn’t much you could do with the PS3 versus the Xbox 360 and its social parties and chats and media choices. I’m highly encouraged and intrigued by the PS4’s social possibilities.

A PSP Vita connected easily to the PS4, allowing me to watch or play my games on the smaller screen. I connected both directly to the box and also tried out a connection over a 4G mobile network. Both worked just fine, though there was a bit of lag with the mobile wireless network. You can change your TV’s input and watch a show while still playing on the smaller screen. I first experienced this on the Wii U last year, but it was clunky on the bulky plastic controller. Gameplay is much more elegant on the PSP Vita.

I also had zero trouble quickly connecting my Samsung Galaxy Note II device to the PS4 as a second screen, using an easily downloaded app from the Google Play store.

As I mentioned, you can connect to your Hulu, Netflix or Amazon accounts, as well as watching videos or movies on other sites. You just need to log into your accounts and you’re good to go.

I could not, for the life of me, get the digital upgrade of PS3 games to work for me. It was probably my fault, not Sony’s, but I was eager to see if I could play my recently purchased Battlefield 4 game on the new console as a digital download. The PS4 is not backward-compatible with PS3 games, but a limited number of PS3 games are digitally upgradable for a cost of $9.99 in the PlayStation Store via a code. Though you can’t play your game disc in the PS4, you’ll have to insert it into the console to play the digital PS4 version.

My PS4 console came with Knack, a game that reminded me very much of Rayman Legends, and the not-so-catchily named Kill Zone Shadow Fall. Neither game would be on my Christmas list, nor would they have been my first choices for breaking in the new console. I will start my full reviews of PS4 games starting next week.

Kill Zone required another system update of about 10 minutes, requiring an auto-reboot, also without incident.

I was prepared to be bowled over by the console’s graphics, but I wasn’t. The two games looked cinematic — kind of like TV shows or movies — with much better edging and shadowing than the PS3. And the teeth of Kill Zone characters were pearly white, not grey, which is one of my constant complaints about the animation on a PS3 and Xbox 360. It’s not hard to understand, with an AMD next-generation Radeon-based graphics engine as its GPU. The games, themselves, loaded quickly and ran smoothly, also not a surprise, since the box runs an eight-core CPU with a clock speed of 1.6Ghz.

They do, however, eat up tens of gigabytes each on the PS4’s 500-gigabyte storage drive.

The new DualShocks are probably the best feature of the PS4. No longer are you holding a too-small, flimsy hunk of plastic, fishing around for the trigger buttons and fumbling for the too-tightly spaced left and right sticks. The new controller feels heavier and more-substantial, the rounded bottom edges extended longer than those of the PS3’s. The triggers also stick out a bit, making it extremely easy to find and tap, and the sticks are spaced a tad further apart. Sensitivity was a bit too high for me out of the box, though.

The PS button remains between the sticks, and there’s a headphone jack next to another jack labeled “EXT,” for I know not what. I like the speaker that sits just above the PS button and note the start button is gone, replaced by an “options” button located just above the four main game-control buttons. There’s a “share” button on the opposite side, just to the right of the d-pad. In the middle of the controller, above the sticks and between the d-pad and game-control buttons is a clickable touch pad.

A video from Sony that loaded up when I connected the first controller seemed to indicate the colored light on the front of an active controller could or would somehow factor into gameplay for some titles. I’ll have to wait and see until I try out the new camera.

I enjoyed testing the PS4, was largely impressed by it and would even consider buying one, but unless you’re an early adopter or if you’re interested in mostly or only game-playing on the console, I’d counsel you to wait just a bit longer.

The price is reasonable, and it seems game titles will remain around $60. I like the social media integration in the PS4 and the ability to watch TV and movies. This is a clear upgrade to the PS3 and is right up there with some solid gaming PCs. Graphics went from standard definition to high-definition from the PS2 to PS3 in a very eye-popping way. There’s not that wow factor this time around, but processing power makes everything you play look cinematic.

I’m cautious only because it’s early days, and there just aren’t that many games that will be on the shelves. Each console is launching with over 20 titles, but that’s just not a lot if you zip through games and are always looking for something new.

I don’t view this is a Sony vs. Microsoft battle, because I have little doubt there’s room in the market for both consoles and that developers will make ample number of games for each box. But you’re probably looking at late Spring 2014 or around this time next year before you really see a robust game ecosystem for the PS4 and its rival.

About Speakeasy

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